Everyone seems to be in favour of the basic idea of putting a spares listing on-line, the question is in what form?
1/ It must be web-based ‘coz it needs to be much more dynamic than a quarterly magazine (though the listing can still appear in the magazine for those unfortunates without Web access).
2/ Sellers/wanters (wishers??) should be able to upload/edit/delete their own entries. This hopefully will not lead to a dilution of content (E.g. dog for sale) but this avoids unnecessarily overloading a spares secretary and allows contributors to expedite the process. This also avoids accusations of cherry picking by spares secretaries or other ‘officials’.
3/ Should it be for the use of 'club' members only?? Several reasons: to allow some control and accountability; to remain consistent with the magazine distribution and finally because there have to be some added value to paying subscriptions
. On the negative side it reduces the target audience.
4/ The database needs a spares secretary/administrator/moderator to: occasionally check contents are up to date by phoning members; load and delete records for non-web enabled sellers; ensure content is GT40 relevant.
5/ The presentation should be ergonomic so its easy to see what’s available at a glance.
I thought about the option to use the forum thread but it seems to fall short on points 3 and 5. However the forum is always still there to be used as well.
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Dave Champ